VoteClimate: Join our Zoom Q&A: Celebrate our successes & share your ideas

Join our Zoom Q&A: Celebrate our successes & share your ideas

Dear [Name],

After temperatures climbed into the 30s last week, June is expected to enter its second heatwave this weekend. This comes, erm, hot on the heels of the warmest, sunniest Spring on record.

In our cool-headed roundup for June, we explore how VoteClimate's recommended candidates fared in the May elections and what the Spending Review means for climate — but first, we'd like to invite you to a very special event…

Join our Zoom Q&A: How can VoteClimate work better?

6.00 - 6.45pm, Thursday 3rd July

With the climate crisis escalating, we want to recruit more members so all our politicians take climate seriously. Next Thursday, we're inviting you to a public Zoom event to share our successes and get your ideas. You don't have to be an expert — on climate change, politics or VoteClimate. We want to reach voters, not policy wonks! Find out more and register here.

VoteClimate news

New team-members: This month, we welcomed three new members to the VoteClimate team — including our first ever paid members of staff! VoteClimate has loads of great data — and Steve, Maks and Jamie will be helping get this out to members like you so together we can hold our politicians to account on climate.

New website, coming soon: A big priority for our expanded team is a new website where you'll be able to find more info about our work, UK climate policy and your MP's record, plus campaigning resources — so watch this space!

May elections success: We recommended the strongest vote for climate in elections up and down the country — and our recommended candidates won 472 council seats. That's over a quarter of the 1,888 candidates we backed. If we get more people to VoteClimate, more of our recommended candidates will win — showing our political parties that they will win more seats by taking climate seriously.

In next year's local elections, more Labour seats are up for grabs. With our expanded team, we're working to get more VoteClimate pledges. All of this costs money, and unlike the fossil fuel lobby, we rely on financial support from individuals like you to have an impact. You can start a paid subscription from £1 per month — we are really grateful for every penny our subscribers give.

Please visit our website to become a paid subscriber or increase your subscription.

Subscribe Now

Spending Review: What does it mean for the climate?

Policies targeting climate action did relatively well in Chancellor Rachel Reeves's Spending Review earlier this month. This is welcome, but the government's commitments are a long way off the £28 billion a year of climate spending pledged in 2021 and ditched in 2024.

Here are some of the highlights and lowlights:

  • Departmental budgets will rise by 2.3% over the Spending Review period (2023/24-2028/29) — but Ed Miliband's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will get an extra 16%. However, the department's overall budget will be just £11.4bn in 2025/26, compared to £215.6bn spent on health and £62.2bn on defence.
  • Great British Energy (GBE) will get its manifesto pledge of £8.3bn to spend on green energy. However, £2.5bn of this will go to GBE Nuclear, which was not in Labour's manifesto — some have called this sleight-of-hand a de facto cut.
  • Reeves expressed support for Doncaster airport, although no new funding was committed to the project.
  • There was no announcement on how the government will honour the UK's commitment to increase climate finance, agreed at COP. This money is needed to help Global South countries adapt to climate impacts and cut emissions — and in the past has been supported from the aid budget, which was cut in February.

The Spending Review is an improvement on previous commitments — but Labour needs to go much further to match the scale of the climate emergency. Read more about what the Spending Review means for climate in this helpful summary from Carbon Brief.

Keep cool in the sun — we'll see you at our Zoom next Thursday!

With very best wishes
Ben, Jamie, Maks, Peter, Steve & William

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